First off, congratulations to the Chicago Blackhawks on winning the Stanley-Freaking-Cup (as though they all are collectively reading this blog and saying, “hey thanks man”), and to Rich Abney of Kelowna for winning the 1st Quadrennial SDC Blogs’ Double Championship Challenge! Along with his prize, Rich receives 4 years of bragging rights. Keeeerr-rap (doubly for runner up Ryley Herzog, who will be hearing about it at Chevy’s Source for Sports for the next four years J). It was looking like Ryley and the Flyers had a chance of pulling one over on all of us with that Bruins/Habs massacre, but alas…

What a great playoffs overall. Complete with a standard Canucks exit, Pronger’s puck stealing/Carcillo antagonism vs Byfuglien/everyone, Joe Thornton and San Jose’s meltdown, Pronger vs. Burish chirps, awesome NHL “History Will Be Made/No Words” commercials and CBC video montages, 3rd string goalies becoming starters and fading out 1st stringers while fading in huge contracts next year (see: Rask, Halak, Niemi, Leighton, etc), Keith losing 7 TEETH mid-game and continuing, Crosby and Ovechkin eliminated early by an underdog, Hossa rescinding his Cup curse, Vince Vaughn, the rejuvenation of hockey in Chicago and the end of the longest running championship drought, a mullet and a mystery OT Cup winning goal (and a Crosby-Olympic-Golden-Goal-esque one at that) by Kane, a prophetic mural, the Conn Smythe and yet another championship for overshadowed (until now) Jonathan Toews; hard to find anything bad to say about that guy.

The Stanley Cup is just simply awesome. Winning it is an un-top-able feat (no, not even Dilbert’s Topper could); truly the most difficult trophy to win in sports, by all accounts of comparison of every other sports’ playoff formats. In no other sports are you required to win 16 games and not lose more than 3 per series to secure final victory. And when you do accomplish said task, an achievement-appropriate sized trophy awaits you; also the biggest in all sports. Often described as the lightest 34 pounds you’ll ever lift over your head, most dreamers will never have the opportunity to find out what that really means. From the first moment video cameras show the Cup in the building to well after it gets lifted over the captain’s head, I get perma-chills and goosebumps every year.

Justin Bourne did as good a job as anyone could on describing what winning the Cup means here.

I had one idea about something to change in the playoffs though. You see, it’s always better to win the Cup at home, in front of your own fans. The Wachovia Center in Philadelphia was dead silent when Patrick Kane scored to win, and rightfully so. How much better would that moment looked on TV if the Madhouse on Madison had the chance to chant “Chelsea Dagger” alongside Toews’ Cup hoisting?

So here’s my idea: for sure in the Cup final, and perhaps in the previous series’, once a team has won three games, the remaining games should be played at that team’s home rink; unless the other team wins 3, in which case the series would shift to that team’s rink. It might play havoc with some arena scheduling, but I think it’d make for a better winning atmosphere. Your thoughts???

Well, that’s it for hockey for a while. Cripes (I’m sure the female readers out there are breathing a sigh of relief). No, I won’t watch baseball in the meantime. Trying reeeeallly hard to give the World Cup and soccer a chance…. but can someone score a goal or two already? 90 +minutes and 0-0 draws are not helping the cause. It seems too exciting of a tournament to have play that boring, doesn’t it?

see, you thought it was a bad idea, and then reconsidered mid-comment, so you don’t really think it’s that bad of an idea after all.

Also consider that in this year’s playoffs, home-ice advantage didn’t mean A THING until the finals. I do think there may be a potential shift in momentum, but as soon as the visitors score a goal or two and suck the life out of the building, it’s all back to square one. Besides, with my way, the behind team also has the chance to earn it back by winning their third game, so there is still incentive.

I just want to give winners a chance to celebrate with their home fans, like they all want to as well.

Does it even really matter where they win it where they win it? Really. I mean the philly fans were super respectful. And chicago was back home with like 6 hours. Leave the format the way it is. And ultimatley I think it should be up to the players and I didn’t hear to many of em complaining about winning the cup in philly. Us fans should just be greatful for such a great season and playoffs that ensued

Surely you’ll never hear a player complain about where they won the Cup, but don’t you agree that on TV it looks a whole lot better if the home team wins in their barn? The place goes bananas, and everyone’s happy. Sure, fans are respectful when the other guys win at their place, but lets be honest, no Philly fans were pumped that Chicago just beat their guys, and nor should they have been. I think that in a game that fights so hard to be relevant for American TV deals, having the championship trophy awarded in a 20,000 seat sold-out arena that’s as loud as a library doesn’t leave a great impression on a viewer that the NHL is trying to lure away from flipping the channel to baseball or a spelling bee.

Truthfully I believe it wouldn’t make that much of a difference. Even more so with these playoffs and all the storylines attached to them. But that’s just my opinion that the fans watching the game at home or consider tuning in don’t go ” well I would watch. If it was a home game”

I don’t think they’re doing that either, I just think if the casual fan were to tune in for the championship game (like I do for baseball, football, and basketball), if they saw an electric atmosphere it would just visually appear better and more appealing, and may cause them to tune in a little more frequently next season and beyond.

I “tweeted” my idea to the World Hockey Summit on Twitter… we’ll leave it with them to decide!

How many fans can you pack into arena? Compare that to the millions around watching it on TV where the venue location doesn’t change how they celebrate (plus the noise made where they are watching is most likely drowning the silent crowd), would the change really make that much of an impact?

Also, agreed with Grant. Knowing that home-ice has an advantage, wouldn’t it essentially be cheating?

I didn’t mind the Hawks winning in a silent arena. Kinda gives them the character of a heel which the NHL needs more of.

I’m sticking to my guns here: it would look better on TV with a packed, raucous crowd celebrating a Cup win with their home team. You’ll never convince me otherwise. Watch Messier and the Rangers winning, or Sakic passing the Cup to Bourque, or any other home win you can think of, and tell me that home win atmosphere is not what you’d rather see compared to what you saw this year; I don’t think you could with a straight face.

As far as cheating, as I mentioned before, home-ice is only an advantage if you utilize it; if the roadies score a few early, quick goals, that “advantage” is nullified pretty quickly. It meant almost nothing all playoffs this year too.

I agree that home ice really only is an advantage if it is utilitzed properly. However here is my question. Do you believe that the rule change you’re implying would really help the game of hockey for the better? And I mean as a whole ie. Excitment,fairness,the tradition and as hockey as a business and enterprise

I really do. I think it creates a more exciting atmosphere; I think it creates more incentive to further your games at home/not to have to play on the road in that situation; and I think it’d be fair that you can lose the privilege just as easy. I think a product that looks more exciting on TV becomes a more marketable product from a business standpoint; something that a fringe advertiser or broadcaster may be more likely to put their name on.

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